George W. Bush's America is alive and well

I definitely like what I see so far. Whether it's the revocation of George W. Bush's executive order 13233, which sealed just about all presidential records, or the plan to close Guantanamo Bay in a year, in just two days Barack Obama has made very, very clear that there's a new sheriff in town, and this one doesn't regard the Constitution as "just a goddamn piece of paper."

However, you do not live for eight years led by a man whose stock in trade was hate and fear and loathing and have it just disappear just because the titular head of bigots and crazies has gone back to Texas, as evidenced by what one Obama supporter endured last Sunday:

In the unseasonable cold of a clear January morning, Forsyth County mother of three and ardent Barack Obama supporter Pam Graf was sifting through the charred, hellish remains of what was once her home on Lanier Drive.

Graf's home had been burned to the ground. No one was in the home at the time of the blaze. Graf said her three children had been sent to stay with their father while she driving to attend the presidential inauguration.

Her trip to witness Obama make history taking the oath of office was cut short midway to Washington, D.C. Instead she returned to meet with county fire investigators and insurance providers. Now she's just trying to decide where to go from here.

In a time of jubilation for a large percentage of the country, Graf is stunned by the apparent hatred to which she has been subjected.

"I can't even make out the rooms," she said. "It's like everything collapsed into the basement. It looks like a bomb went off."

Graf's home burned down early Jan. 18 in what authorities are calling a "suspicious fire." Most shocking to Graf, and to some of the citizens of the county, state and nation at large, was graffiti the apparent arsonist left on scene.

Spray painted on the fence around the home it said, "Beware [expletive deleted] your black boy will die."

While Forsyth County fire investigators refuse to comment on the nature of the statement, Graf, who moved to north Forsyth from Dover, Del., three years ago, said there's little doubt as to its meaning.

"I do not think they were targeting me personally," she said. "It seems obvious that this is a direct result of my support of the president. They don't support the president, so they attack me. I'm a very easy target for someone's racial hatred."

This is the fruit of the Atwater/Rove axis of campaigning. This is the fruit of the Willie Horton ad and Ronald Reagan's myth of the welfare queen in the Cadillac. This is the result of nearly thirty years of Republicans pointing the attentions of the working and middle classes down the socioeconomic ladder while fatcats like John Thain rob them blind. This is the fruit of Sarah Palin's all-white rallies where she screeches about "The real America."

Think about the ruins of Pam Graf's house. Think of the family photos she no longer has. Perhaps there was jewelry or china that was her grandmother's that she no longer has. Think about it -- a woman burnt out of her house because she wanted to go join 1.8 million other people in celebrating the inauguration of a new president who just happens to be black.

Then think about some of the things you've heard out of Republican mouths for the last three decades, and do the math.

Because while people in theory on the same side as I am are blasting me as akin to a racist simply because I simply don't share Aretha Franklin's personal taste in millinery, ACTUAL racists are burning down the homes of people who are guilty of nothing other than enjoying the fact that we now have a president who can construct a coherent English sentence.